For more than six years, HEQCO has conducted research on the differentiation of Ontario’s public postsecondary system, where institutions build on and are accountable for their specific strengths, mandates and missions. This report identifies clear distinctions between universities in terms of their research and teaching missions. The data point to critical pathways to achieve the benefits of greater differentiation. The goal is a system that is more cohesive, more sustainable and of higher quality.
About a third of tenured faculty age 50 or older expect to retire by “normal” retirement age,1 while fully two-thirds anticipate working past that age or have already done so. This latter group is sometimes called “reluctant retirees,” and when their numbers swell on campus, it can lead to productivity declines, limited advancement opportunities for junior faculty, a lack
of openings for new hires, and difficulty reallocating institutional resources. To address a reluctant retiree pheno- menon and better manage faculty retirement patterns, college and university leaders need to understand the thought process among senior faculty regarding whether and when to retire.
Student ratings of teaching have been used, studied, and debated for almost a century. This article examines student ratings of teaching from a statistical perspective. The common practice of relying on averages of student teaching evaluation scores as the primary measure of teaching effectiveness for promotion and tenure decisions should be abandoned for substantive
and statistical reasons: There is strong evidence that student responses to questions of “effectiveness” do not measure teaching effectiveness. Response rates and response variability matter. And comparing averages of categorical responses, even if the categories are represented by numbers, makes little sense. Student ratings of teaching are valuable when they ask the right questions, report response rates and score distributions, and are balanced by a variety of other sources and methods
to evaluate teaching.
Grade 8 is a critical year for Ontario’s students. It is not only a pivotal point in a young person’s emotional, social, and physical development1, but also a time when students must choose between taking applied and academic courses in high school. These course selections largely determine students’ educational pathways throughout high school and have the poten-
tial to influence their post-secondary options and career opportunities2.
This report examines the gap between Ontario’s stated policy regarding students’ choices in high school and the reality on the ground. It looks at whether grade 8 students should be required to make decisions that have such important short and long term consequences in light of international evidence suggesting that it contributes to lower outcomes.
An early consensus in the ongoing discourse about graduate student preparation for diverse careers was that graduates lacked competencies relevant to non-academic professional settings. Lists of missing “skills” were developed that universities and agencies sought to address, most commonly by the offering of generic (transferable) skills workshops or courses. In this paper, we critique this framing of the issue and discuss the limitations of the common approaches taken to address it. We propose a more integrated approach, where students’ thesis research itself is oriented to their possible futures (a practice already occurring in many areas), and where assessment of the competencies so developed is integral to the awarding of the degree. We illustrate the concepts through the stories of two students, and discuss policy ramifications and
the substantial challenges to its realization presented by a highly competitive research
environment and established ways of assessing success in faculty and students.
In Ontario, the topic of increasing transferability between colleges and universities has recently attracted the attention of
numerous individuals in the fields of higher education, politics and the local media – many of whom have suggested that increasing the availability of college to university transfer programs, also known as articulation agreements, would facilitate pathways to higher education for a greater number of students from diverse backgrounds. However, there are many issues surrounding the transfer of students from colleges to universities in Ontario, most of which are connected to the historical structure of the system of postsecondary education in the province. Any progress towards a system of greater transferability between community Ontario and universities would require a careful analysis of the success of existing college to university transfer programs as well as a radical reconsideration of the provincial system of postsecondary education as a whole.
Engaging communities in research increases its relevance and may speed the translation of discoveries into improved health outcomes. Many researchers lack training to effectively engage stakeholders, whereas academic institutions lack infrastructure to support community engagement.
The Critical Thinking Assessment Rubric was developed as a key deliverable of the ‘Building Capacity to Measure Essential Employability Skills’ project funded by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO)1. This handbook serves as a resource to teachers in using the Critical Thinking Assessment Rubric.
Critical thinking is one of the six skill categories within the ‘essential employability skills’ (EES) curriculum requirements for Ontario college programs – specifically, EES numbers 4 and 52. Each of these essential employability skills must be addressed (learned, practiced, evaluated) within a program. How and when these are implemented should be based on decisions regarding the program as a whole and by individual teachers.
Tioga High School senior Emily Kennedy studies a child development college course online in Groveland, as part of
a collaboration with Columbia College.
The paper presents a discussion of faculty development in 22 of Ontario's Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology. We report the findings of a survey which collected information on administrative structure, funding, mandate, faculty development activities, publication, incentives for faculty participation, assessment of faculty needs and evaluation. We conclude by raising a number of questions which faculty developers might address as changes in the social, political and economic environment present new challenges to colleges and universities.
A recent Globe and Mail article pointed out that Canadian universities appear to be slipping in world rankings. This is not a good thing. Higher education institutions — because of the students they teach, the research and discoveries they make, and the communities they support — are some of the most critical public institutions in Canada positioning us for a robust economy with plentiful good jobs and the quality of life and civil society Canadians want and merit.
The challenge Canada faces in higher education is best summarized in this question: How can we deliver a better education to more students with no more money?
This is a proposal to teach classroom-based mindfulness techniques to teacher education candidates as part of their teacher education programs. While mindfulness, including yoga and meditation, is growing more popular in a range of educational settings, the majority of K-12 programs are delivered to schools through external personnel from yoga or mindfulness service organizations. In many cases, these programs are provided at low or no cost to schools, or individual teachers might take trainings ranging from about $600-$2500. A more sustainable, affordable and ethical scenario would be to develop the capacities of teachers to employ mindfulness techniques for their own wellbeing, and that of their students, during their teacher education programs.
Student mobility refers not to just the physical ability of a student to move from one institution to another, but the more comprehensive understanding of a student as an independent agent who - as their own needs and desires change - requires the ability to move from one institution to another to achieve their educational goal, be it a college certificate, diploma, or undergraduate degree. The policy has been broken into three key pillars, which cover the mobility needs of Ontario’s postsecondary students: Transparency, Consistency, and Student Support.
Through the writings and research of pre-eminent online learning expert, Dr. Tony Bates
For almost 50 years, Tony Bates has been a consistent, persistent and influential voice for the reform of teaching and learning in post-secondary education, notably through the effective use of emerging technologies. Author of 11 books and 350 research papers in the field of online learning and distance education, Tony Bates is also an advisor to over 40 organizations in 25 countries, and publisher of what is arguably the most influential blog on online learning (link is external) with over 20,000 visits a month. A Contact North | Contact Nord Research Associate, Dr. Bates has helped educators, academic administrators and policy makers grasp key concepts, trends and challenges in online learning This posting is one of a series that looks at Tony’s perspectives and advice on key issues in online learning.
Canada needs more university, college and trades graduates. In order to compete in the new global knowledge economy, we have to equip all Canadians to achieve their potential and contribute to a prosperous Canada.
This chapter examines how the three most common types of engagement found among adolescents attending high-performing high schools relate to indicators of mental and physical health.
How do you blend General Education competencies (i.e. communication, ethical/logical/mathematical reasoning) across an institution and curriculum? Kaplan University’s General Education program integrates and assesses student proficiency in General Education disciplines across all undergraduate programs. The datais used to inform curricular improvements in a continuous process for maximizing student learning.
Even as the economy has at last begun to expand at a more rapid pace, growth in wages and benefits for most American workers has continued its decades-long stagnation. Real hourly wages of the median American worker were just 5 percent higher in 2013 than they were
in 1979, while the wages of the bottom decile of earners were 5 percent lower in 2013 than
in 1979.1 Trends since the early 2000s are even more pronounced. Inflation-adjusted wage growth from 2003 to 2013 was either flat or negative for the entire bottom 70 percent of the wage distribution.2 Compounding the problem of stagnating wages is the decline in employer-provided health insurance, with the share of non-elderly Americans receiving insurance from an employer falling from 67 percent in 2003 to 58.4 percent in 2013.
There is a growing body of research demonstrating that there have been major changes in the work and working conditions of university teachers in many countries over the last few decades. In some cases this has led to the increasing employment of non-full-time university instructors, and questions have been raised, especially in the United States, concerning the working conditions of part-time faculty and the implications of these changes on educational quality. The number of full-time faculty at Ontario universities has not increased at the same pace as the massive growth in student enrolment, raising questions about whether universities have employed non-full-time faculty in larger numbers and whether the balance between full-time and non-full-time instructors is changing. However, very little empirical research has been conducted on non-full-time instructors in Ontario. This study offers a preliminary exploration of the issue by addressing four key questions
This research study was initiated and funded by OPSEU Local 110 at Fanshawe College. The report was presented as part of a panel discussion of the Rae Review featuring Bob Rae, Darryl Bedford, Glen A. Jones and Mary Catharine Lennon in London, Ontario on March 31st, 2015. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and may not reflect the views of OPSEU Local 110 or its members.